Foster kids say medication is overprescribed

Before a roomful
of important adults, foster kids and graduates of the system talked
about being put on powerful psychiatric drugs and undergoing
"treatment" when what might have helped more was a chance for a regular
life with sports and clubs and jobs.

Friday's day-long legislative meeting drew a number of state officials,
lawmakers and advocates, and focused on how to improve Alaska foster
care.

In
May, a group of foster care youth and those who have aged out came up
with eight ways to improve the system. Among the identified problems:
Overprescribed psychiatric drugs.

Too
many foster children are prescribed psychiatric drugs, the kids said.
They are labeled as disturbed, defiant or anxious when in reality they
are just reacting to the trauma of their broken families and the
difficulties of living in state custody.

Candice
Tucker remembered when she first went into foster care two years ago,
at age 15, because her mother couldn't take care of her.

"I
was freaking out because I had just gotten into care. I was having a
hard time so they thought I needed residential," Tucker, now 17, said.

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For her, the treatment center helped, but she questions all the drugs doctors put her on.

"There
are natural things in life that stress you out. You get depressed. You
get sad or you get angry or anxious. They are natural emotions. I feel
being in foster care and being on as many anti-psychotics and
anti-depressants that I've been on -- they see me for a week and they
assume that's the way I've always been," Tucker said, her voice soft
but her manner open. Later she explained that she's shy, but wants to
make life better for other foster children if she can.

Now,
as she's preparing to start at the University of Alaska Anchorage in
January, Tucker wants to ease off the powerful medications.

"I need to have my mind with me. I need to be alert," she said.

Slade
Martin is 20 now, but he spent 15 years in Alaska's foster care system
and shuffled through, by his count, 21 different foster homes,
emergency placements and treatment centers. He once was treated at a
local psychiatric hospital and said every kid there is put on
psychiatric drugs.

The kids want the medications cut back and think that will help them focus better on school and function better in the world.

"I don't think meds are always the best option," Martin said.

A NEED TO BE NORMAL

Counseling
is traumatic to some kids -- telling your story to one stranger and
then another, said Becca Shier, now 18 and a UAA student in social work
who has been in foster care nearly six years.

Some,
like her, will never open up. Instead of making them feel like
something is wrong with them, Shier told the legislators, why not get
them involved in extra curricular activities so they can be part of a
regular school experience?

"So they could be normal."

Teens
in foster care too often end up in treatment centers because the state
has no other home for them; they are the "foster homeless," Shier said.

Martin said he spent 2 1/2 years at an Anchorage treatment center
because no foster family would take him in. "Some crazy people up in
there," he told legislators.

He said
he was "diagnosed with everything under the rainbow" but doesn't think
anything was really wrong with him. Other kids stabbed people and
punched holes in the walls and were scary, he said during a break.

Tammy
Sandoval, director of the state Office of Children's Services, said
later that she was taken with what the youths had to say. The idea of
kids spending months or years in residential treatment centers for lack
of a family is troubling and she wants to look into the matter.

But the fact is, the state doesn't have enough foster homes, especially for teenagers, she said.

Sandoval said she planned to discuss the medication issues with the state's director of behavioral health.

The
foster kids and alumni at the meeting are especially articulate and
successful, said state Rep. Les Gara, an Anchorage Democrat who grew up
in foster care in New York state and was one of the main organizers of
Friday's session. Foster kids too often struggle in school, end up
homeless and are unemployed as young adults, according to studies
presented at the meeting.

The kids
who spoke Friday have been finding their voice through an advocacy
group called Facing Foster Care in Alaska that now numbers about 140
statewide, said its president, Amanda Metivier, who at 24 helped
organize the conference and is weeks away from graduating from UAA with
a social work degree.

She'll be
one of the first to graduate on a special tuition waiver specifically
for foster kids. The foster care group wants all foster kids to be
offered that benefit. Now just 10 foster kids a year get that at UAA.

At
their May meeting, they also agreed to push for Medicaid health
benefits to age 21, Medicaid-paid braces, and money to help older
foster kids live on their own.

But
state Sen. Johnny Ellis, an Anchorage Democrat at the meeting, said
even sympathetic legislators may have trouble getting new programs into
the state budget with the recent dramatic drop in the price of oil.

• OCS CASEWORKERS: Current authorization is four short of the number recommended in a 2006 study. But 25 positions are vacant.

• Trouble with turnover:
One-third leave every year. There are signs that is improving, said
Tammy Sandoval, OCS director. Training for new hires has doubled, from
two to four weeks, and OCS is moving to allow flexible hours and
telecommuting, she said.

• Churches to help:
So far, six Anchorage churches -- Anchorage City Church, Abbott Loop
Community Church, Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, Crosspoint
Community Church, Faith Christian Community and ChangePoint -- have
banded together to help improve foster care. They want to recruit 200
new foster families by 2012 and form a private agency that will find
other ways to help.

iwannanewlife2-
Your user name said it all. I may not know what you been thru. I been
taking care of my children on my own for the pass 11 years now, one was
3 the other was 8. With no help from anyone, I went out and got a JOB
and did what I had to do, I put my children first. I can't send my
children to college, I don't have money for that, but I'm not going to
cry about it. Just because Foster Children are getting help, I think
they deserve it. If my children want to go to college, their have to
work for it, you know get a JOB, apply for grants and such. Sometimes
you just have to learn to stand on your own two feet and not expect a
handout. You said yourself "My kids are busting their butts just to get
financial aid for college." So what's wrong with that? Their learning
that everything isn't handed to them they have to work for it. Nothing
wrong with that. You school debt are your own.

Liberty2u-You
have no clue what I or my kids have gone through, continue to go
through, or our/my circumstances. Money owed does not mean we will ever
see a dime of it. The state has known where the ex was at the whole
time; he has been under their so-called "supervision." Not for much
longer, and still, the state won't follow its own laws. My kids know
what it's like to have a parent who doesn't want them or care. He has
chosen zero contact. So, because I have been responsible and cared for
them, all foster kids get a free ride while me and mine get debt?
Besides, I know plenty of kids in foster "care," and they have
parent(s) who care and are in touch. Relatives too. If some are going
to get free rides because of hardship, do it equally, or don't do it at
all.

iwannanewlife2
- These children do deserve a second chance. You don't know what these
children went thru. These are foster children that either the parents
wouldn't take care of or abused in some way. Not being wanted by your
own parents has to be hard. What your going thru can't compair to what
these young children went thru. You may be own $170,000.00 as long as
it owed your never be broke. Track down your ex maybe your get it. I'm
a divorce mother of 2, personally I could careless about the money, but
of course I only get 70 per week for both of them. I would rather see
the father come and visit then have the money. After all I do work for
a living and make more then enough to support my children.

Great
to see young adults who've been in foster care and treatment centers
come together to help find solutions. We can't generalize all youth
into one category because EACH child is unique and has their own unique
needs/situation. There are different levels of residential care. The
most acute care settings (hospitals, psychiatric treatment, etc.)
require eligibility criteria that includes determining if that child's
needs could be better met in a different environment. The mindset is
always, "least restrictive level of care" is better for the youth. Some
kids are extremely suicidal, dangerous to themselves or others, have
serious behavioral problems, etc. For these kids it's about stabilizing
and keeping them safe during that time so they can reintegrate into the
community whenever possible. Sometimes family reunification is
possible, other times not. That is always the preferred but some
families are very destructive and unsafe places. Let's focus on
solutions not blame.

I
know there's a lot of problems with foster "care" and OCS and all that.
Alaska tends to prescribe too many drugs to kids in general.
But it is absolutely not right for these kids to get free tuition.
There are other kids who have tough lives also.
My kids and I are owed over $170,000.00 in child support. The state
will do nothing to enforce its own laws against the ex in my case. The
kids have no dad.
My kids are busting their butts just to get financial aid for college.
I have $70,000 in student loans--even after turning down well over
$10,000--because it helped support us while I was in school, because
CSSD is a lazy outfit.
My kids deserve a break as much as any foster kid. Guess that's what we
get because at least one parent was responsible...

Take
away the bounty on kids heads that the state receives through federal
block grants when they remove children from there natural parents and
adopt them out and you will see a system that will Truely look into
resolving issues.and maybe it will strive a little more in correcting
problems than selling them off...And start looking into what particular
Docs and Agents are requesting these meds,,yes folks there is a
pattern....